This scenario is adapted from an event I worked recently; the purpose is not to second-guess the HJ (who said he didn't mind if I shared it on the forums), but to explore an area of policy that could be clearer. The player this is based on is not under active investigation, as far as I know.

You're the Head Judge at a PPTQ. After the cut to Top 8 has been made, you hear Adam, who just won his win-and-in, saying to his friends, “I'm glad Nicole scooped to me. She asked about rolling a die, but she was clearly going to lose.” You approach Adam and ask if Nicole really proposed rolling a die. He says that he was just kidding, and, when pressed, mentions that a judge was right there, so why would Nicole do that? He states definitively that Nicole didn't mention rolling a die at any time.

You speak with Judge James, who was sitting at the table, and he says that she asked him in front of Adam, so he just told Nicole not to do that. You have him retrieve Nicole, who confirms that she asked the question and that Adam heard it.

Irrespective of Nicole's fate, has Adam committed USC Cheating by lying to you?

The IPG tells us:

A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a tournament official, or notices an offense committed in his or her (or a teammate's) match and does not call attention to it.

Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:
• The player must be attempting to gain advantage from his or her action.
• The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.
If all criteria are not met, the offense is not Cheating and is handled by a different infraction.

Adam is certainly aware that he's expected to be truthful - I've never seen a player who genuinely believed that it was fine to lie to a judge. But has he gained an advantage?

I'd argue that advantage means more than just “chance of winning prizes right now.” There's social capital to be gained from not “ratting out” an opponent who just scooped you into Top 8 - if word gets around that you “betrayed” her in that way, no one's going to scoop you in ever again! So by lying, you're improving your chances to win future events, or at least not hurting those chances. That seems like an advantage.

In a thread circa 2013, Uncle Scott provides some insight:

However, if you are certain they are lying, DQ. It's not our burden to discover the advantage they seem to think they'll gain.

The counter-argument here is that if we consider social capital or other non-prize factors to be an advantage, why is that line in the IPG necessary?

So, going back to the original question: has Adam committed USC Cheating by lying to you?

I get the sense this is one of those things where they didn't want to get too verbose in the IPG by carving an exception out for lying, and didn't want to have a whole separate infraction just for lying, and trying to read it too technically just isn't a good idea. (or that we know many people use the word “lying” far too loosely)

This frustrates me a little because this seems exactly like the kind of scenario we want the IPG to protect us by sticking to is literally, but we have to exercise our judgement in pseudo-ignoring that second criteria. But the IPG is not a computer program to be executed, it's a set of guidelines to be applied.

That post of Uncle Scott's isn't the only time I've seen that sentiment, though maybe they others derived from it. I'm certainly open for hearing other takes.

It reads as a DQ to me, and one that will require a truckload of tact on delivery.

It definitely a disqualification, the question becomes is it for USC-Cheating or USC-IDaW? To quote the IPG

This penalty will be issued to both players, unless the other player calls over a judge as soon as an inappropriate suggestion to determine the winner is made.

Since this was the first infraction to occur is this the penalty? Do you just choose one and write up a DQ report for that penalty? Or do you submit multiple disqualification reports for the same person?

There's a judge right at the table, Brock - should Adam call another judge?

Can “intentionally lying” not almost always be interpreted as trying to gain an advantage? Why else would they lie? (Barring compulsive behaviour)

The player has lied to a Tournament Official, that's always been a Cheating offence.

I don't think we can do something with the IDaW due to the judge handling it at the table

If he says the truth the result is: he didn't react to a “roll a die” offer -> Infraction
Telling a lie “prevents him” from this infraction which is an advantage.

This is exactly the reason why in real-life defendants may lie - Nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare - no on can be forced to turn himself in by saying something.

I understand the rules are different in Magic: The Gathering and not as tragic as in real life but there is some thought about the real life situatoin that it is very difficult to accuse yourself of wrongdoing and also draggin others into that situation. So an “emergency statement” imho COULD be considered OK if no one got hurt.

According to the rules however I think it was Lying to a Tournament Official - but i don't feel well with the judgement DQ.

Originally posted by John Brian McCarthy:

In a thread circa 2013, Uncle Scott provides some insight:

However, if you are certain they are lying, DQ. It's not our burden to discover the advantage they seem to think they'll gain.


The counter-argument here is that if we consider social capital or other non-prize factors to be an advantage, why is that line in the IPG necessary?

Maybe there is a question around why that line is necessary, but in past discussions about “odd” Cheating cases (since this has been the definition of Cheating) it's always been made clear that social capital & other non-prize factors do count as advantage for the purposes of this. Some examples:
Trying to avoid a penalty is advantage
Helping a friend is advantage

This seems clearly a DQ for the Lying for Adam, and a DQ for the IDaW for Nicole (not DQing Adam for the IDaW since the presence of the judge is enough to give cover his requirement to call a judge immediately. Nicole still gets the DQ for it; it's unfortunate that the judge at the time didn't address it, but that doesn't mean we can let it go.)

Edited James Winward-Stuart (July 8, 2015 05:41:38 AM)

Originally posted by Denis Leber:

This is exactly the reason why in real-life defendants may lie - Nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare - no on can be forced to turn himself in by saying something.

I understand the rules are different in Magic: The Gathering and not as tragic as in real life but there is some thought about the real life situatoin that it is very difficult to accuse yourself of wrongdoing and also draggin others into that situation. So an “emergency statement” imho COULD be considered OK if no one got hurt.

This is absolutely not OK in Magic. We want players to always be honest and to call & tell judges when there are problems; there is no pass on lying to officials or hiding infractions “if no one got hurt”. In fact, there is the opposite - we have systems to downgrade penalties when players self-report infractions, which is intended to encourage players to admit to their own “wrongdoing”.

My opinion:
The game and the whole structure and the whole “we want players to have a great environment” could at a certain point be unstable if unpopular decisions or behavior is experienced by the community.

There is a lot of shades (maybe even more than 50) between a magistrate (judge of peace) and the Inquisition. Both aim for the same result - Justice - with quite different methods and outcome.

This case imho shows that “letting it pass” could be fine otherwise, DQ both of them. If a person measures his success as a judge in how many infractions he penalized or how many players he DQed then something is wrong - i guess we can agree on that.

Back to the specific case: Anna did something wrong - N didn't want to call on her. Told this to his friends which was overheard by a judge - well unlucky him. Basically it comes down to: Why do you listen to private conversations between players in between games? Overhearing conversations and issuing penalties MIGHT lead to where judges are no longer something “positive” but something “investigative” and people go “shh… judge” when they see a black or red shirt. Ok, this went far too dystopic now…

The IPG is clear that we DQ here, so we DQ here; there isn't enough going on to make this sufficiently “significant and exceptional” to deviate.

Going into the deeper philosophy, in general ensuring players have a great time at events is the main goal, but there is one thing which overrides even that - preventing IDaW, bribery, collusion, and gambling. These are things where we are required to DQ - you'll note that Cheating requires the player to know that they were doing something wrong, but these do not, and do not offer a downgrade option.

As for lying to judges and tournament officials, we don't want there to be any ambiguity - players should never be able to think that lying might be OK because there is no personal gain or because they are defending another player.

And if players think they have to stop their conversation when they see a judge, doesn't that imply that their conversation was one they shouldn't have been having anyway?

TL;DR lots of words, not an answer.

I'd caution against thinking that every time a player lies to a tournament official it must end in a disqualification.

For example: I walk into the hall at the very start of my weekend wearing my judge shirt, and see a buddy of mine that is playing in the event. I ask him where the bathroom is. He deliberately gives me bad directions as a joke. This is clearly lying, and I'm clearly a tournament official…but disqualification is crazy here.

John Brian quoted the IPG about USC - Cheating already. Note that there is no named infraction for lying to a tournament official. The only thing that mentions it is USC - Cheating. Be aware that lying is not in and of itself enough to disqualify you. You must meet the other criteria. Quoted again here, bolded for emphasis:

A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a tournament official, or notices an offense committed in his or her (or a teammate's) match and does not call attention to it.
Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:
• The player must be attempting to gain advantage from his or her action.
• The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.
If all criteria are not met, the offense is not Cheating and is handled by a different infraction. Cheating will often appear on the surface as a Game Play Error or Tournament Error, and must be investigated by the judge to make a determination of intent and awareness.

In my example, a person lied to a tournament official, but they did not do so to gain advantage. They probably even know that lying is wrong, but consider their actions a joke (which they are) rather than an attempt to gain tournament advantage. Context is super important here. If “lying to a judge” was always a DQ, then we should be DQing for a lot of perfectly innocent situations.

There are also issues with over-investigating. If you ask someone to tell the same story multiple times, they oftentimes end up with discrepancies. This is “lying” in that they gave you differing information about the same event, but unless they are doing so to gain an advantage should not be penalized.

To answer the actual question:
I don't have enough data to figure out if I am disqualifying here, I'd have to talk to Adam a bit more, and possibly Nicole if I don't feel that judge James gave me enough to go on. I am pretty sure Adam knows that IDaW is a DQ, which means he is probably lying to avoid getting that penalty. But I don't know at this point.

The core questions I want answered are:
Why did Adam change his story when he told me rather than telling his friends?
Did Adam know IDaW was a DQ, and let the judge wave it off? (This is not in and of itself an issue. You aren't required to appeal or correct judges that make mistakes. The question goes to knowledge, rather than intent.)

It is super clear from Adam changing his story when talking to me that he wants to paint a different picture to tournament officials than his friends, but that is not in and of itself Cheating.

Because the scenario is a PPTQ, these are probably people I know, and pressing them with “hey, I talked with judge James, and I am getting different stories, and I really need to know why, especially because you told the same story differently to your friends and me” should get them to give me something to go on. This may not work for everyone, especially if you've never met the player before.

If I get the impression that Adam thinks the judge got it wrong, and that he and Nicole should both be DQed for IDaW, and is lying about it to avoid this, then he gets a Cheating DQ. Like, if he said “sure”, the judge missed it, and he realized after the fact that it was a DQ for IDaW, that is no good.

If I think he lied to me because he believes nobody would ever scoop him into T8 again if he got his opponent DQed, that's also enough for me.
—
Rob McKenzie
Magic Judge Level III
Minnesota

Good work at eating my formatting, forum. I meant not an official answer.

—
Rob McKenzie
Magic Judge Level III
Minnesota

From the description I'm pretty sure Adam lied to me here to avoid ‘telling’ on Nicole or to avoid a IDaW penalty (which he might not have received given the judge's comments at the table - it would depend on the details), both of which look like advantages to me and as a result I'd DQ Adam. I'd also go back and DQ Nicole for the IDaW.

Completely understand and accept Rob's points about lies not related to the game, jokes or re-phrasings but don't see that applying here.

Would disagree with the comments from Denis about the environment. If players are trying to hide every conversation from judges is suggests there's something inappropriate going on and we probably need to take action to fix that even if it's unpopular. This investigation could have started a number of ways other than the judge overhearing the conversation, the issue comes about when Adam starts to lie to a judge.

Originally posted by Marc Shotter:

to avoid ‘telling’ on Nicole

How is this an advantage?